Various GL1 / XM1 questions

[Oscar Vidales]

I just bought a Gl1 in awesome condition and I wanted to know your opinion on what type of minidv tapes work best with this camera? Also looking to buy some filters and wanted to know what are the "must-have" filters, what brands to look for and what brands to stay away from. thanx

[Mark Williams]

Oscar,

I have used Sony DVM60 Excellence tapes in my GL-1 for the past 3 years with no problems.

Regards,

Mark

[Oscar Vidales]

Know of any place to get em cheap?

[Bill Hardy]

I use mostly Panasonic, but if they have none at Best Buy switching to Maxell has not jammed the cam. I always stay away from JVC. I have had 3 of their consumer cams which have broken down prematurely and their tape has messed up my cam.

Tip: once you choose a brand it is best not to switch; jamming can result.

[Jorn Umpo]

get the xm1, it's a good camera for the price

[Oscar Vidales]

Thanx

[Shawn Rogers]

Hey,

I'm currently looking to get my hands on a used GL1. If anyone here, or anyone you know is selling one, please let me know. Otherwise, recommendations on where to look for a used GL1 would also help. So far, all I have in mind is Ebay. They usually go for around 800 - 900 there.

- Thanks

[Ken Tanaka]

There's one for sale right now in our Classifieds section.

[Shawn Rogers]

Thanks for link, but I'm looking for somthing a little closer to $1,000 if not lower.

[Ken Tanaka]

Make him an offer, Shawn. That's part of what the Classifieds is about.

[K. Forman]

I did it... I went ahead, and purchased a cheapo lens on ebay. Partly out of curiousity, partly out of necessity, mostly out of cheapness.

So, being the dutiful board citizen that I am, I decided to share my initial results. After finally recieving my new toy, I went out into my backyard to shoot some flora and fauna. After 15 minutes, a Mockingbird decided to grace me with it's presence. I noticed several things.

1) Shooting birds is for the birds. About the same time I get framed, zoomed, and almost focused, the little bugger has flown off. I have much more respect for those who shoot wildlife.

2) There is significant vignetting until halfway through the zoom.
It looks like I'm shooting through the middle of a donut. Mmmmm... Donuts...

3) There is only a slight improvement in the closeness. At 30 ft and full optical zoom, the subject is just out of focus, no matter how hard you try. At a little less than full zoom, the image is pretty clean.

4) There is an annoying little lens flare present in the lower left corner, shaped like a pentagon. It's almost like being haunted by the Chrysler logo.

Since I don't have any prior experience with a tele-converter, I can't compare it to anything. I can say, that even a slight improvement was worth the $39.95 I spent on it. Of course, as soon as I can, I'll replace it with a better lens.

Or buy a wide angle...

[Jeff Price]

I've played with both the Sony and the Century Optics lenses. All are sharp at the high end with little lens flare so this may be a case of getting what you pay for. All of them vignette when zoomed out. My feeling is that the vignetting stops when you are at the mutiplied equivalent of the 20x of the original lens. So they should be considered add-ons.

Shooting birds takes lots of practice and songbirds are among the hardest.

1) Use a tripod.
2) Find the birds singing post. During the breeding season a territorial bird will often return to one branch to sing from. Set up in a blind or in the shadows and focus on that point.
3) Birds see VERY well. If there is interest I can post an essay on the topic of how well birds see and hear and why wearing camo is not such a bad idea.

It is much easier to use a big lens to film more stationary wildlife - ducks on a pond, herons, etc.

The latest (?) isse of Digital Videomaker has an interview with a filmaker working on a new documentary on grizzly bears. He primarily used an XL1 with a 600 mm lens. Given all of the conversion factors that is what, equivalent to a 4200mm lens?!? If you get farther away then it is easier to film without disturbing the wildlife.

Finally, practice, practice, practice. Film an hour and get snippets of useful footage. For the documentary mentioned above the cameraman was in the field for 250 DAYS! The life of the wildlife photographer......

[Stu Minnis]

I know the GL1 has no manual gain control for audio, but I was reading something that made it sound like the auto gain on the GL1 works more like a limiter than a variable auto gain--only attenuating sounds so loud they will clip, rather than adding gain to weak signals with the universally despised S/N disasters that typically ensue.

Can anyone either confirm or deny these reports?

[Don Palomaki]

The GL1 operates at full gain until the input signal exceeds a threshold, about 12 dB below clipping, then it starts to reduce the gain. It does not have the high degree of background noise pumping you get with many other camcorders, but you will hear changes in the noise floor if you are overdriving the input (or the build-in mic).

Also worth noting that the noise floor is substantially lower at the MIC ATT setting.

[K. Forman]

I found that using mic att almost cancels my shotgun.